Art that gives a voice to refugee stories

“How can an artwork give voice to those buried beneath archival files?” This is one of the questions posed in “En Mal d’Archive,” the exhibition up at Station Beirut.Organized as part of the Syrian Oral History Archive in collaboration with Studio Khaled Barakeh and the Dawlaty Institute, the show exhibits work by four Syrian artists, created from Syrian refugee testimonials in Lebanon and Syria.

The exhibition also includes seven works by international artists, whose practice focuses on archives.

The project began last year, curator Khaled Barakeh explained to The Daily Star, when he was invited to Lebanon to do a workshop with the archive.

Struck by the vast number of testimonies given by “ordinary” Syrian refugees living in Lebanon and Syria, Barakeh began working toward an exhibition that would utilize the archives, making public stories that are often lost or forgotten.